Adrie Rose
Climate Strike
I organize the strike and I burn dinner.
I organize the strike and I carry our clothes two blocks to the laundromat.
The news says it’s already too late
and I organize the strike.
I organize the strike and call my mother to check on her bloodwork.
I organize the strike and I practice my Spanish.
I organize the strike and forget to buy cat litter.
I organize the strike and I go out for boba tea with my twelve year old.
I hold their hand as we walk.
I organize the strike and men tell me how to do it better.
No—they can’t participate, they are busy but
they have suggestions.
I organize the strike and I bring colored pencils to the meeting for my children.
I organize the strike and I fill out paperwork for food stamps.
I organize the strike and I lie in bed
still thrumming from the march, singing, When the night has come,
Stand by me. Listen to my children breathing. Sleeping.
Adrie Rose lives next to an orchard in western MA and is the editor of Nine Syllables Press. Her work has previously appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Massachusetts Review, The Baltimore Review, Ploughshares blog, and more. Her chapbook I Will Write a Love Poem was published in 2023 by Porkbelly Press, and her chapbook Rupture was published in 2024 by Gold Line Press.